Egypt Endowments: “New measures to prevent extremists from ascending the pulpit”
The circular stipulated that “any of these elements should be promptly suspended from the lawsuit, and their data should be communicated to the concerned authorities.”
Hisham Abdel Aziz, head of the religious sector in the endowments, warned, according to the publication, against covering up the militants, and said that “if the religious sector does not provide the data of any person with extremist or extremist affiliation, and then discover it with the knowledge of the follow-up and inspection bodies in the ministry, this will be considered a serious failure in the job duty.” of those in charge of mosques.
This measure comes days after the Supreme Administrative Court in Egypt endorsed the decision of the Minister of Awqaf to unify Friday sermons for imams, preachers and preachers at the level of mosques and zawiyas in Egypt.
Violations and penalties
The source added, in an exclusive interview with our reporters, that the penalties fall according to the error, whether allowing militants to rise to the pulpits or not complying with the topic of the sermon, and the time period specified for it.
Regarding the mechanisms for controlling violations of extremists’ ascent to the pulpits and violations of the unified sermon, a well-informed source at the Ministry of Awqaf said that there are inspection and follow-up committees that pass through mosques and notify the concerned directorates of violations, and refer them to the religious sector.
The penalties begin, according to the source, with a warning and then a pledge not to repeat the incident, leading to a deterrent punishment such as permanent suspension of public speaking, and if the imam violates the endowment decision, his punishment may reach imprisonment.
The source revealed that the most famous violations that were monitored recently, were for the son of the Salafi preacher Muhammad Hussein Yaqoub, Alaa Al-Din Yaqoub.
Confronting the rhetoric of extremism
Ibrahim Negm, advisor to the Grand Mufti of Egypt, said that ascending the pulpit and issuing fatwas without knowledge are the most prominent tools of extremist groups to spread their poison, whether through sermons in mosques or media platforms.
In an exclusive interview with Sky News Arabia, Negm added that the problem of extremism lies in the wrong understanding of religion, and its interpretation away from its true and correct path.
He explained that extremism is an issue of a fundamentally religious nature, and it is natural that religious discourse, whether advocacy or fatwa, is primarily entrusted with addressing this phenomenon and offering an appropriate religious intellectual treatment to limit its spread and limit its spread.
The Mufti’s advisor continued, saying that the goal of renewing religious discourse is to reach all interlocutors, and their feeling that this discourse touches their real problems and provides realistic solutions to them, especially that those with extremist discourse are trying to present their project based on illusory postulates that they are the only ones who possess the absolute truth and apply the religion.
The strategy of the Ministry of Awqaf to end the chaos of rhetoric requires that the imam go through several stages, including the “Imam of the Mosque” competition, then specialized competitions and undergo training and scientific programs, in addition to restricting the rise of the pulpits to Azharites and graduates of specialized colleges.
And Mohamed Mukhtar Gomaa, the Egyptian Minister of Awqaf, had announced a few days ago, during his discussion in the House of Representatives, that the ascent of 12 imams to the pulpits had been terminated at once, because they had a non-modernist ideology.
